


Tell Me the Question Again

by emperors_girl



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Erik has Issues, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 16:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12172260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emperors_girl/pseuds/emperors_girl
Summary: I’m not your Daddy, Erik thinks,but you are very cute.





	Tell Me the Question Again

**Author's Note:**

> Watched a couple minutes of the Steve Jobs movie, and while it gave me too much anxiety to finish, the first scene with his daughter gave me ideas.
> 
> If it's any consolation, the twins won't remember any of this. Unlike with that asshole SJ who did it right in front of his daughter, jeeze.

Charles’s twins are unnervingly tiny. Also battered and bruised, but apparently that’s what happens when you’re forcefully pushed into the world. Erik hadn’t known that before. He could have gone his entire life without knowing it, but it’s too late now.

“Does Daddy want to hold them?” the midwife asks.

Erik’s confused for a moment, wondering whom she’s addressing. She has one little bundled baby in her arms, and for some reason, she’s looking right at him when she says the word ‘Daddy.’

“Oh,” Erik says. “I’m not-”

“Now don’t be shy,” she says, smiling like there’s something funny.

She steps forward and puts the baby into his arms. If it were anything else but a baby, Erik would simply refuse to take it, but he can’t do that to a child. This little one – too wrapped up to tell if it’s the boy or the girl – needs someone to hold it, and if the midwife refuses then Erik must do it instead.

He looks down at the little face: a tiny sharp nose, a mouth curled up into a toothless scowl, eyes bigger than they should be for the size of the face.

_I’m not your Daddy_ , he thinks, _but you are very cute_.

“Erik,” Charles says, voice half-slurred.

Erik means to look at him right away – really he does – but he finds it difficult for some reason to tear his eyes away from the little one. He has to blink a few hard times and bite the inside of his lip before he fully overcomes the spell the child has put on him.

Charles looks completely wrecked. His eyes are drooping and there are tear-tracks down his cheeks. His ridiculous nose is red but the rest of him is pale enough to be worrying. 

Erik wonders just how much blood he’s lost. It had seemed like very much in the moment.

“What?” Erik says. His brain is acting very slow right now and that’s unacceptable.

“Let me see him,” Charles says.

He’s got the other one in his arms. The girl, it must be, if this one’s the boy.

Erik says, “Fine,” and goes to Charles’s side. But when it comes time to hand him the baby, Erik hesitates. It’s not that he doesn’t want to give the child to its Papa, it’s just… his arms don’t seem to want to cooperate.

He bites his lip again and manages to control himself enough to hand the child over.

“This child has ensorcelled me,” he tells Charles when the boy is safely in his arms. “Are you sure it’s not a telepath?”

“ _He_ , Erik,” Charles says. “ _He’s_ not a telepath. And no, he’s definitely not. Neither is she, though I have gotten a sort of vibe from her… well, don’t worry about it now, love. Whatever you’re feeling, it’s just first-time Daddy hormones.”

Erik scowls and says, “That doesn’t apply here.”

“It does,” Charles says. He’s touching the boy’s face with one gentle finger, and it makes something terrible happen in Erik’s chest. “It definitely does.”

Erik turns away because he can’t stand the feeling the scene is giving him. He scowls and says, “They’re not mine. You know they’re not.”

Charles yawns. He says, “Here, take the girl so I can try to feed him.”

Erik does. She’s just as tiny and perfect as her brother. She’s got the same little nose and big eyes. It makes Erik feel faintly sick.

“Really, Erik,” Charles says after he’s gotten the boy situated. “With the way you keep besmirching my virtue, it’s like you think I’m not faithful to you.”

“I never said that,” Erik protests, insulted. Of course he knows Charles has been faithful to him. It’s been four years they’ve been together and there have never been any doubts in his mind that they’re going to stay together until one (or hopefully both) of them dies horribly.

Charles suddenly gets a soft look on his tired face and says, “Oh, Erik. My God, but you do make my life difficult. Come here.”

He pats a space on the bed beside him. Erik sits, the girl still held tightly in his arms.

Charles says, “Erik, I can’t do this alone. Maybe just one baby I could handle, but I can’t take care of twins all by myself. I’m going to need your help. And it can’t be perfunctory.  
They deserved to be loved, Erik.”

His shoulders slump slightly after he’s finished talking, as though it’s taken a lot out of him to say all that.

Erik calls the metal water cup to his hands. “Drink,” he says.

Charles’s hands are shaking, so Erik holds the cup steady against his lips. Charles drinks slowly, like his throat hurts, and when he’s done drinking he immediately leans back against the stack of pillows behind him.

Right. That settles it. 

“Give me the boy when you’re finished,” Erik says. “I’ll put them both down in their baskets, and you will sleep.”

“They’ll need fed again soon,” Charles tells him. His eyes are barely open again. “There’s not much coming out right now, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll watch over them,” Erik promises. “And wake you when they cry.”

Charles is tired and pained enough to agree. He lets Erik put the children down, and then he lets his eyes close fully in what must be a terribly uncomfortable excuse for sleep.

Erik watches him – the man he loves. It’s been a very long day, and it isn’t over yet. The children will start to cry again before long, and Erik will need to rock them or wake Charles to feed them. But until then, Erik will watch over them – all of them.

He turns to the babies and gently – careful not to wake them – runs a finger down each of their cheeks. Every time he looks at them, he loses his breath. He still has his doubts about sorcery, but if Charles says it’s natural, then natural it must be. This might just be what people always feel when faced with the children their lover has birthed.

_I’m not your Daddy_ , Erik thinks again, _but someone has to take of you both, and of him_.

Erik was always going to be that person. He finds he doesn’t quite mind.

 

Taking care of the twins and Charles is easier said than done. Those first few days after they’re born are particularly rough. The babies cry more than they sleep and when one of them is awake, the other isn’t long asleep. They cry when they’re hungry, and they cry when they’re wet, and they cry for any other number of reasons that Erik doesn’t understand.

Changing diapers is… not a pleasant thing. And the spit-up…. Oh Gott, the spit-up! After three days, Erik no longer has anything clean to wear and his hands are rubbed raw from all the washing. It doesn’t help anything that he’s too exhausted to even think, because every time he closes his eyes, someone’s crying. Sometimes the person that’s crying ends up being Erik. It’s all very confusing.

It does get better after the first week. Or maybe Erik’s body proves its superiority by adapting to a no-sleep schedule. Charles is still healing, but after those first few days, he’s really able to start pulling his weight. His (oddly appealing) breasts also get the message and start producing enough food that the twins stop being constantly hungry. Of course, that also means more diapers need changed, but at least Charles is able to do his fair share of that work.

After the first few months, the twins stop being such useless sausages and start being actual babies who do things, and that’s a nice development. They start being fun, in a way. They’re still a lot of work, but now instead of being 95% work and 5% fun, the balance shifts to something more like 60/40.

Erik won’t pretend he doesn’t get great pleasure out of seeing Charles’s children smile at him or make cooing sounds when he picks them up. He won’t pretend they’re not soft and comforting to hold, like the very best dog companion. They still spit up more than Erik would like, but he buys them each a rough gross of bibs and spit rags, and that more or less takes care of the problem.

The one major thing Erik doesn’t like about them is that everyone who comes over finds it necessary to tell him how much the twins look like him. They’ll say, “Spitting image, aren’t they?” and Charles will nod in agreement and say, “Yes, yes. You should see his baby picture next to theirs. And they look more like him every day.”

Erik never says anything when that happens because he believes in presenting a united front with visitors. But once they’re alone again, Erik always says as calmly as he can, “You should stop telling people that.”

But Charles just rolls his eyes and keeps doing whatever he wants. And Erik puts up with it because he loves him and because he loves the twins.

 

It’s different once the twins are old enough to speak. When they were just sausages lying there it didn’t matter as much, but they’re really starting to understand things now, and Erik doesn’t want them to get the wrong idea. 

Charles is no help, as usual. He’ll say, “Pietro, where’s your nose?” and Pietro will point to his nose and then giggle when Charles applauds. He’ll say, “Wanda, where are your shoes?” and Wanda will toddle over to her shoes by the door and fetch them back for Charles or Erik to put on her. He’ll say, “Pietro, Wanda, where’s your Daddy?” and they’ll both squeal with excitement and ambush Erik as he’s coming through the door. And Erik will pick them up one at a time and swing them around in circles, and then set them down for the pleasure of seeing them toddling dizzily away back toward their Papa.

But. He’s not happy about it. It’s not okay. The twins are already thinking of him as their Daddy, and that’s not good for anyone.

He finally brings it up again after months of silence on the subject. He’d hoped by giving Charles time to think about it, he would come to his senses. But he never does.

So Erik says, “When are you going to tell them I’m not their father?”

Charles sighs and says, “They’re eighteen months, darling. They don’t understand paternity. And anyway, you _are_ their father.”

Erik scowls. “I may have raised them-”

“No, listen to me very closely, Erik, because I am tired of repeating myself. You are their father. You raised them, absolutely, but you’re their father because you and I had sex nine months before they were born and I conceived.”

He sighs again and runs a hand through his hair. “Look, I know why you’re deliberately misunderstanding this. You’re scared and I get that. But my God, Erik, how long are we going to keep playing this game? How long are you going to keep pretending you’ve got nothing to do with this family? What about when they’re old enough to understand? Will you keep telling yourself they’re not yours when they know enough to resent you for it? And what about the new baby? Are you going to just write him off, too?”

He doesn’t sound angry. He never sounds angry when they have this conversation. He just sounds tired and upset, and Erik wishes now he hadn’t brought it up.

Then Charles’s words catch up to him.

“New baby?” he asks. “What new baby?”

And then Charles does sound angry. He says, “Fuck you, Erik. I’m going to bed.”

He storms off, leaving Erik alone in the dark.

Erik puts his face in his hands and, for the first time in two years, really thinks about it.

 

Charles isn’t asleep when Erik comes to bed a few hours later, but he doesn’t look at Erik or say anything, either. He just stares at the ceiling, eyes glassy and jaw clenching.

Erik lies down next to him and pushes his face into Charles’s collarbone. He’s pleased when Charles brings his other arm up to pet at Erik’s hair.

Erik says, “You know what’s inside me, Charles,” he says, voice muffled by skin. “You know what I’m capable of.”

Charles keeps stroking his hair. He says, “There’s good in you, too, my love. I’ve seen it. I’ve felt it. And those children, they’re the best of us.”

“And this one?” Erik asks, bringing a hand up to brush where he knows (and has known for weeks – he’s not an idiot, even if he is a fool) the new baby is resting.

“All of them,” Charles says. “All the ones we’ll ever have.”

 

In the morning during playtime after breakfast, Charles says, “Where’s Wanda?” and Pietro rushes over to hug Wanda, who’s pointing at herself. He says, “Where’s Daddy?” and Erik opens his arms to let them both come rushing at him.

It still makes his heart pound painfully against his breastbone to think it, but Charles is right. He can’t just… write the children off like they’re nothing. He’ll just have to trust that Charles knows what he’s doing and will protect them all from the demons that lurk inside Erik.

He gathers his children close and holds them tight, even as they squirm playfully away.

He says, “That’s right. I’m your Daddy.”


End file.
